Can anyone who works in HR answer a maternity question for me??????

[hahahehe]

Hi everyone, any advice would would be greatly received....... I am currently on a years maternity leave and I am due back to work in March - I have recently found out I am pregnant again, which we are very exited about but not sure what happens next at work???? Do I go back as planned and then start maternity leave again or do I lose out because I am currently on maternity leave???
If anyone knows the ins and outs of this I would love to know as my boss was really horrible to me before I left and didn't speak to me for the day I told him I was pregnant to the day I left!!!...for almost 5 months I had post-it notes and emails!!!!
So would like to be a bit prepared before I go and see him!!!!
CHEERS EVERYONE!

Your maternity leave counts as continuing service as far as I know. Your boss sounds like a nightmare - is it a big firm you work for? Can you talk to your HR dept about it if it is?

Am sure you would go back and then start on another term of maternity leave when the baby is born. You boss sounds like an arse though so I would ensure that I go back, if I were you, since he may be hoping that you don't and leave.

That was one of the things I was unsure about...whether maternity leave counts as continuous service. Yes my boss WAS an absolute nightmare... he made sure he was out of the office the day I left to ensure he didn't have to talk to me!!!...the list of petty stuff he did is endless and I was close to taking it further but couldn't be bothered - the funniest thing was, is that he headhunted me from another company !!! And it is a BIG household name company - I am due a meeting with HR in the new year but just wanted to get a few things clear before hand!!

Where I work, you have to have a certain amount of weeks back at work before entitiled to full maternity pay.
Not sure how many weeks though, never thought to look TBH. I'm on MAT leave at the mo so cant check the policy.

For SMP, you have to earn £82 average a week for the 8 weeks leading up to the 25th week of pregnancy. Thats weeks 17 to 25. As long as you are back in work for those weeks and earning an average of that amount each and every week you will qualify for 90% of your salary or £106 per week whichever is lesser for 6 months. Your maternity leave counts as continuous employment. So in theory you could go back to work on week 17 of your pregnancy, work enough till 25 weeks to get £82 per week, then leave on the earliest date 29 weeks of pregnancy and still qualify for SMP. You would earn a couple of thousand for only 12 weeks work. If you get more than SMP from your employer then that would be up to them but you would definitely get SMP.

Try here

tiger

The same happened to my friend.
You go back to work as planned and then have full maternity benefits. Only if you werent to return to work would you not be entitled to company maternity pay.

thanks for that link seb1. Very useful as I am currently planning my maternity leave.

i returned to work in oct 03 and started my mat leave for dd2 march 04. I never had any problems and as i work for the govenment, i was paid full wages.